This is the Government that You Want to Run Health-care?

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Thanks, JDG. You completely ignored my question. I give up.

This is a mischaracterization. Are your arguments so weak that you have to lie your way out of the conversation?

You presented a situation and gave only one option to choose from, this is a fallacy. I gave the option I would choose based on the situation which you described.

 

[ZenFountain]

Thanks, JDG. You completely ignored my question. I give up.

Join the club. If you take the time to make a cohesive and well researched rebuttal to JDG's little thread droppings he simply ignores it or quotes one line and turns it into a red herring. Seems to be a reoccurring theme.

 

[Rolfe]

Why is the government not supplying a basic level of health-care to all people? People don't consume basic health-care, then get a heart transplant. They choose a luxury health-care procedure because they can afford it. Therefore, supplying cheap substandard health-care to the middle-classes would be a waste. There's no necessity - we are not seeing hordes of ordinary citizens going without health-care because of an inability to access basic health-care.

Can you not see it is the same argument?

Actually, I said people have different health-care needs.


Do you really believe that all health-care is needed? You argument stands on the idea that there is no luxury health-care.

Maybe you can get back to me when you've learned to read. My original post recognised the "luxury" healthcare. I don't think you'll find any universal healthcare system will be paying for you facelift or your cosmetic dentistry any time soon.

The fact is that nutritional needs are roughly similar between individuals. There is no disparity where one individual needs only a few dollars a week for food while another needs thousands of dollars. There is no problem with the distribution and purchase of food which needs solving.

There is a problem with your healthcare system. Your healthcare system is broken. It is bankrupting many of your citizens. One day it may bankrupt you. Get your head out of your backside and realise that.

Rolfe.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Join the club. If you take the time to make a cohesive and well researched rebuttal to JDG's little thread droppings he simply ignores it or quotes one line and turns it into a red herring. Seems to be a reoccurring theme.

If it makes you feel better to think this...

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

There is a problem with your healthcare system. Your healthcare system is broken. It is bankrupting many of your citizens. One day it may bankrupt you. Get your head out of your backside and realise that.

The problem with the American health-care system is government manipulation of the market. This is why less government intervention is needed, not more.

Ohh, scary! The sky is falling and many are going bankrupt due to health-care costs! Please government save me!

Can you not see this is scary propaganda?

I prefer to look at the reality of government health-care and its poor quality of service.

NHS maternity units falling short

Many maternity units in England are failing to provide top quality care, an independent review suggests.

Older people receive 'poor' NHS care

The NHS still fails to treat many older people with dignity and respect despite the introduction of a national plan to end age discrimination, a health service watchdog warned today.

The commission for health improvement (Chi) found that the NHS still provides poor care to many older people despite the introduction of the national service framework (NSF) for older people two years ago.

Just a couple of selections on the poor quality of government care.

No Thanks!

 

[SezMe]

Ohh, scary! The sky is falling and many are going bankrupt due to health-care costs! Please government save me!

Can you not see this is scary propaganda?

Propaganda? Read some facts, especially noting these:

A recent study by Harvard University researchers found that the average out-of-pocket medical debt for those who filed for bankruptcy was $12,000. The study noted that 68 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. In addition, the study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses (14). Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.

Secondly, NO politician has proposed anything like the NHS for the USA. To bring the English approach to health care into this discussion about USA healthcare policies is either intellectually stunted or dishonest....or both.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Are you really making the argument that business kills more people than government?

Not in particular. Care to make the argument that Enron ran the electical power system than the public utilities did before it was privatized?

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Than why is government not providing the BASIC level of food to all the people?

I think you'll find in your country it's called the Food Stamp program.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Propaganda? Read some facts, especially noting these:



Secondly, NO politician has proposed anything like the NHS for the USA. To bring the English approach to health care into this discussion about USA healthcare policies is either intellectually stunted or dishonest....or both.

You stat works out to over 1 million people each year filling bankruptcy over medical bills.

I call BS.

3% of the population has declared bankruptcy in the last decade due to medical bills? This is laughable.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Not in particular. Care to make the argument that Enron ran the electical power system than the public utilities did before it was privatized?

Enron did not run any electrical power system. Please get your facts straight.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

I think you'll find in your country it's called the Food Stamp program.

And are all the people required to participate? This is what we are talking about. The poor already get free health-care like the food stamp program.

 

[SezMe]

You stat works out to over 1 million people each year filling bankruptcy over medical bills.

I call BS.

3% of the population has declared bankruptcy in the last decade due to medical bills? This is laughable.

You can call BS all you want but that call and $3 will get you a latte at Starbucks.

I gave you some statistics that are damning to your position and gave you the link so you could explore the research yourself to determine its validity. You did not do that, not that I am surprised.

If the statistics are "BS" and "laughable" it should duck soup for you to find data that proves me wrong. To shamelessly quote myself:

Your turn. Chop, chop. Get to it little man.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

You can call BS all you want but that call and $3 will get you a latte at Starbucks.

I gave you some statistics that are damning to your position and gave you the link so you could explore the research yourself to determine its validity. You did not do that, not that I am surprised.

If the statistics are "BS" and "laughable" it should duck soup for you to find data that proves me wrong. To shamelessly quote myself:

Here you go.

Washington Post January 4, 2008

More than 800,000 personal bankruptcy filings were made in 2007, compared with more than 573,000 in 2006.

Less than a million bankruptcies nation-wide each of the last two years, and of course not all of those were due to medial bills.

Your "sky is falling" statistic I am sure is using the 2005 data as a base line, if you are unaware the law was changing concerning bankruptcy in 2006 and people scrambled to file in 2005 for this reason.

 

[SezMe]

Actually that article you cited supports my contention! Thanks for that cite to help make my argument.

First, regarding the number of bankruptcies, your article says

Personal bankruptcy filings soared to more than 2 million in 2005, with more than 600,000 filings made in October, when the law went into effect.

Right. And the article I cited implied about 1 million bankruptcies in 2005 filed due to medical problems. Perfectly consistent.

Regarding the general number of bankruptcies, your article says

Personal bankruptcy filings for most of this decade had been much higher -- around 1.5 million annually.

a datum you said was "BS" and "laughable".

The whole point of the article you cited is that the years 2006 and 2007 were unusual because of the new bankrupty law. So your selection of those two years to support your point is a beautiful example of cherry-picking of data.

You shot yourself in the foot there, JDG.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Right. And the article I cited implied about 1 million bankruptcies in 2005 filed due to medical problems. Perfectly consistent.

Ohh, so one year of data maybe being in line with your assertion evidences your point.




You claimed that over 1 million people each and every year file bankruptcy due to medical problems and all you can come up with is data I presented which shows this number has maybe been reached in one year. The year in which people we clamoring to file because the laws were changing.

As I said before, you claim is laughable.

 

[Fitter]

Personal bankruptcy filings for most of this decade had been much higher -- around 1.5 million annually.

Most of a decade is more than one year. With my limited math skills I'd say it would have to be at least six years. I know you don't care to read posts from other people but could you at least read your own sources.

 

[jimbob]

JdG,

I know that you have been asked this before, but is there any reason why you think that large private bureaucracies are likely to be less bureaucratic than public ones? Especially if an insurer is feeling the pinch and any policy to hinder access to treatment will reduce costs? (Especially with your proposed and undefined curbs on legal interventions into the medical system).

What should happen for people who are bad insurance risks? Should insurers be forced to pay for them? How easy is it for someone with sickle-cell to get comprehensive insurance?

Is a universal healthcare system, such as the NHS better, or worse for people on low incomes, or bad insurance risks than medicaid?

In the UK there is also private provision, but it is far smaller than the NHS.

In the US the private provision is far larger than public.

Medicaid costs a larger percentage of GDP than the NHS does the British taxpayer.
(44.7% of 14.7%=6.6%) was public, as opposed to the UK's (83.4% of 7.7%=6.3%) of GDP Source:

OECD Health Data 2007 - Frequently Requested Data

Now I know you are proposing that the state should intervene to prevent lawyers from supplying their services to consumers of healthcare, but I can't see why you think that is OK, but the government spending less yet supplying universal healthcare is such a bad idea.


BTW in an earlier discussion you suggesterd that the (absent) father should pay the costs of care for the daughter:

More from mom:




Maybe Dad should be paying the bill and not the tax payers.

There is/was similar system in the UK (the Child Support Agency)

Do you know how well it worked?

BBC news

Should the Government waste taxpayers money trying to get absent fathers to pay for something, when it is likely to cost a huge amount? Why should a 19-year old adult be penalised because of parents not paying for health insurance (whether they could afford it in this case or not)?

I consider it a mark of a civilised country that there is a system (however flawed) that attempts to provide treatment for chronic medical conditions as well as acute ones regardless of the circumstances of the patient.

Did you ever answer as to how that would work if the father wasn't interested in looking after his offspring?

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

JdG,

I know that you have been asked this before, but is there any reason why you think that large private bureaucracies are likely to be less bureaucratic than public ones?

Yes, but that is not the argument I am making.

I have made the argument that the large private bureaucracies have been created by government regulation.


Why is it everyone is caught in this dichotomy?

Ohh, thats right, propaganda and platitudes substituted for thought.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

... but the government spending less yet supplying universal healthcare is such a bad idea.

Can you not see from whence your ideas are coming?

You are being promised more for less.



I child can see the fallacy.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Did you ever answer as to how that would work if the father wasn't interested in looking after his offspring?

Are you unaware that if the State cares for the children the fathers are free of responsibility?

The State is de facto promoting the devaluation of the family structure. This in turn produces a dependency on the State and the power of the State over the people is extended.